The Rising Arts Writers Program is an initiative created by The Arts Beacon to encourage, mentor, support and post writings by aspiring locals writers. With the intention of fostering critical responses to art and artists in the Valley, the RAW Program creates an opportunity for up and coming writers to comment on their own art scene using the platform of The Arts Beacon website while also being a valuable resource for local artists seeking insights into their practice.

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Rethinking Fire by Bryan David Griffith is an intriguing exhibition created with charred wood, leaves, and silk. Griffith brought to life the concept of how forest fires have affected his environment, and how human manipulation has hurt the environment at large.

Leaves were used for my favorite piece, the installation called “Rebirth.” The piece was designed in a circular pattern with yellow leaves seeming to fall from the ceiling. The leaves were coated in beeswax and then strung together by a clear string, so as to make them look like they were floating down to the ground. On the floor was black ash in a circular pattern that helped convey the message that the leaves were reborn from the ash.

There was also a poem next to the piece that told the story of how the leaves were reborn. The poem emphasizes that fire isn’t an all ending force that destroys life. It cleans the environment, and then the forest is reborn again, fresh and new. Forest fires are a necessary and continuous force that will always return. I thought I it was interesting that the ash on the ground was actually from the site of a forest fire, and that they were able to accumulate the ash to set with the leaves.

A similar piece that also used ash from the site of a forest fire was the work titled, “The Immanence of Forests.” A large black and white photo printed on silk showing woods being burned was charred at the bottom with the cinders from the actual fire at the photo’s base.

Griffith explained in the piece’s text panel that change is necessary to thrive. In describing the necessity of forest fires and how humans have given the fires a bad reputation, he argues that in reality they are part of the cycle of the forest. He explained that we believe we must preserve forests, and that they will always look the same, but really the trees and leaves are constantly changing, and forest fires play a vital role in that process.

Each piece had a theme of adversity. Griffith used black and white to show the opposite connection between a forest and a fire. He explained that in western culture we usually see things as dualities. A forest and fire are seen as opposing forces, but Griffith’s work tries to view the two forces as part of the same cycle. This theory is most prevalent in “Severance,” the black and white are starkly different, on two different canvas with two different sizes of circles, but the circles represent a cycle, the beginning and ending of forest fires that continues throughout nature. The fires may end, but they always return, and that is their natural cycle.

Griffith’s main take away from his works was that forest fires are a natural part of the environment, and that human interference has wreaked havoc on the system. Forest fires are not a terrible disaster for wildlife, but when put in control of humans, they can not only hurt the forest’s ecosystem, but the environment at large.